


Weakness

by BritChick91



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Withdrawal, aftermath of drug use, spoilers for 'a controlled descent', spoilers for the season three finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 05:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4735133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritChick91/pseuds/BritChick91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan has a moment of weakness.</p>
<p>(Spoilers for the Season 3 finale)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weakness

There is a letter for her on the table.

Her name is written on the envelope in beautiful calligraphy. There’s no stamp – the letter was hand delivered. Knowing as she does exactly who the letter is from, Joan should really be more concerned about that, but she has bigger issues to deal with. More pressing issues.

It’s the fifth letter in as many days, and now Joan has to admit that ignoring the problem will not make it go away.

The letters began exactly one week after Sherlock’s relapse. Honestly a part of Joan is surprised it took that long. Moriarty’s network is growing complacent with their mistress in prison. No doubt upon her inevitable release, many heads will roll as Jaime drags her underlings back to a standard she deems acceptable.

Joan opens the letter.

 

_My dear Joan,_ it begins.

_This is the fifth letter I have written to you. I know you have not read any of the previous, as I asked you to answer a question for me in all four previous messages._

 

Joan should really be more concerned that Moriarty is so confident she wouldn’t just ignore the request. She is no crimelord’s pen pal, content to assist a ruthless killer in whiling away a few hours on correspondence. She buries her irritation by continuing down the page.

 

_My sources have provided me with some deeply concerning rumours regarding our dear mutual friend. Most crucially, that he did not fall, but was pushed._

Well. Joan knew what the subject of the letters had to be, but she does appreciate Moriarty skipping all the bullshit.

 

_I doubt he, or you, would accept any offer of help I made, but there are things I can do, even in here, that will aid recovery. But in order to do so, I need your assistance, my dear Watson._

Joan blinks, confused.

_I need a name._

 

Joan physically recoils when she realises what Moriarty is asking of her. She’s not stupid – she knows that Jaime wants her to reveal who it was who pushed Sherlock into relapse, and that to do so would be Oscar’s death sentence.

She burns the letter without even reaching the end. She burns the other four as well. If Sherlock were to rise from his stupor long enough to question the fire, she’d say she was cold. She’s shivering enough that it’d be believable.

 

 Sherlock doesn’t notice the fire. He doesn’t notice anything, just shuffles from room to room.

 

\--- 

Joan ignores the next letters – she’s too busy. She may not be Sherlock’s sober companion any more but the next few days are all too familiar – she helps him through the sickness of relapse, only leaving him hunched over the toilet to enter his room and search for any remnants of the stash Oscar gave him. Alfredo offers what help he can over the phone, leaning out of the window of his hospital room to get a signal, but they both agree that even once he is discharged from hospital, under no circumstances is he to set foot in the brownstone before Watson gives an all clear.

One relapse is far more than enough. Joan does not want anyone else tested, especially so soon after the trauma of his kidnapping.

 

She begins to flinch whenever the telephone rings – the spectres of both the Holmes patriarch and Moriarty clinging to her shoulders, weighing her down, and she is already so, so tired (in a brief moment’s respite while Sherlock dozes fitfully on a nearby couch, she wonders in Mycroft knows about his brother’s relapse, if his information networks are as far reaching as Jaime– as Moriarty’s). She knows she can’t ignore the letters forever – starts more than once to write passages explaining why she won’t tell Moriarty what she wants to know, why she should know that asking that of an ex-doctor wouldn’t work, but the words won’t come. Her pen slips and shakes. She burns all the pages.

Two weeks after Sherlock’s relapse, something breaks in both of them. They’re once again camped in the toilet, both exhausted and shaking. Joan goes to fetch a glass of water, and when she returns, she stops still in the doorway. Sherlock is crying, trying to be quiet about it, but like so many things, it’s messy and fucked up and all she can do is hold his hand as he sobs about how hard he tried and how he doesn’t know if he can do it again and he’s scared, and dozens of other things she’ll take to her grave.

 

Seeing him broken, seeing such a strong and brilliant man sobbing curled up in a bathroom tears at her, and when Sherlock finally lose consciousness, head pillowed by towels, she stands unsteadily, hands shaking, and she grabs a sheet of paper and a pen.

_Oscar Rankin,_ she scrawls. It’s the messiest she’s ever seen her handwriting, but it’s just about legible. And, just as every letter thus far has bade her (she lied, she read them all before she burned them as some sick masochistic punishment), she slips the sheet of paper under the doormat out the front of the brownstone. Then she returns to the bathroom, where Sherlock lies, fitfully unconscious, props herself against the doorframe like a vigil, and also passes out.

 

\---

She remembers almost immediately upon waking what she did, and bolts to her feet before Sherlock awakes. She nearly falls down the stairs in her rush to descend, and tears the doormat up from its resting place.

 

The paper is gone.

 

And she knows, with a sinking sense of finality that Oscar will be as well by sunset. No doubt shot and dumped in the river, another junkie in a deal gone bad. Done far enough from their patch of the city that no one will look at his face and think “ _hey, isn’t that…_?”

 

Even if Joan could reach her, Moriarty could not be convinced to leave Oscar to the authorities.

 

She could call the police. She could warn the authorities, have Oscar taken into protective custody.

 

Joan hears Sherlock retch upstairs, and though the words of the Hippocratic oath echo in her head, she passes the phone, leaving it hanging in its cradle, as she climbs the stairs to face this new day in the new fight against Holmes’ addiction.

 

\---

Jaime Moriarty will have no mercy. No one can break her toys but her.


End file.
